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by Rachel Lyon, Editorial Director for The House Designers®
If you’re thinking of installing skylights in your new home, or retrofitting them into a renovation, chances are you’re primarily concerned with adding natural light to your interior. That’s definitely their main selling point, but skylights can also do so much more. You can add darkening or diffusing blinds to tailor lighting throughout the day, and if you opt for an operational model, you can open skylights to refresh your indoor air. Here’s why you should consider automated skylights for the betterment of your home!
A More Comfortable Experience
Have you ever thought that you’d create drafts by adding more glass to your home? Perhaps you’ve grown tired of strong glares coming in from overhead? The right skylights can actually address the biggest concerns some homeowners have with them! Well-constructed skylights are energy efficient, and there is a significant, measurable difference in airtightness between older installations and what you can get today. You’ll also find a variety of operational models that open and close, and can be outfitted with blinds and shades to tailor their looks and functionality to your liking. This is how skylights contribute to a comfortable home beyond enhancing your space with natural light.
If it feels a little warm inside, opening a skylight allows air to vent out. If the sun is shining in your eyes, a light-filtering blind will diffuse it for you, or you can have a blackout shade block it. Having these options can transform how you use and experience your home, but you can also take it a step further. An automated system that takes data from sensors installed in your home and the local weather forecast can handle everything to optimize indoor conditions for you. Of course, you can also set preferences—maybe you’d like to sleep in and get more rest? Try using automated skylights with blinds to personalize each space!
A Healthier Interior Environment
Nobody likes a home that feels close or stuffy, but it can actually be bad for your health, too. Indoor conditions are usually worse than those outdoors, because pollution builds up—whether it’s VOCs off-gassing from products we bring inside, mold-encouraging humidity from a hot shower, or CO, CO2, and NO2 spikes from cooking with a gas stove. Clean air legislation doesn’t reach inside homes, and pollutant levels inside would likely be illegal if measured outdoors. Wouldn’t it be nice if your home could do something about that?
Venting your interior daily is a simple solution that makes a huge impact on indoor air quality. Very few of us do it, though. That’s why it’s a good idea to look into automated skylights, which are equipped to air out the house on a schedule and/or in response to indoor condition data gathered from sensors. High humidity and CO2 levels will trigger the skylights to open—weather permitting—to refresh your air. The system will be mindful of the settings you provide, so you don’t have to worry about your own preferences being overridden. Homeowners love the hands-off approach to better home health, but they’re always ultimately in control.
Better Energy Efficiency
For the sake of the planet and your own wallet, investing in energy-efficient products is a smart choice. Automated skylights that know when to vent hot air can slash your air conditioning costs, and if you include integrated blinds, they’ll work with the seasons to provide more light and heat in the winter than in the summer. You’ll see the savings when it comes to lighting and HVAC, and it doesn’t have to affect your electricity bill at all. Solar-powered skylights and blinds install wirelessly because they have built-in solar panels to generate their own energy to operate—you really can create a healthier, more efficient home without incurring extra ongoing costs. All you have to think about is the batteries in the sensors.
Check out VELUX ACTIVE if you’re in the market for automated skylights. It gives you the power to control everything from your smartphone and through Apple Homekit for voice activation, or you can let it do the thinking for you with the intelligent NETATMO system. You can connect up to ten climate sensors and up to 200 skylights to a single gateway—that’s way more coverage than the majority of homes will ever need—to optimize conditions in the whole house. If you want to take advantage of tax credits for solar-powered property, try this estimator to see how much you could save up front! You might also be interested in the VELUX blind shop to outfit your skylights for greater fashion and functionality. Find an installer to discuss the possibilities for your home!